Sakura Haruno: The Haunted Mask
by dec181985
Summary: How ugly is Sakura Haruno's mask? It's so ugly that it even scared her one friend to death. So terrifying that even her friends are totally freaked out by it. It's the best Halloween mask ever. It's everything Sakura hoped it would be. And more. Maybe too much more. Because Halloween is almost over. And Sakura is still wearing that special mask...
1. Chapter 1

Sakura Haruno: The Haunted Mask  
Chapter 1

"What are you going to be for Halloween?" Ino Yamanaka asked. She moved her fork around in the bright yellow macaroni on her lunch tray, but didn't take a bite.  
Sakura Haruno sighed and shook her head. The overhead light on the lunchroom ceiling made her straight pink gleam. "I don't know. A witch, maybe."  
Ino's mouth dropped open. "You? A witch?"  
"Well, why not?" Sakura demanded, staring across the long table at her fiend.  
"I thought you were afraid of witches," Ino replied. She raised a forkful of macaronito her mouth and started to chew. "This macaroni is made of rubber," she complasined, chewing hard. "Remind me to start packing a lunch."  
"I am not afraid of witches!" Sakura insisted, her eyes flashing angrily. "You just think I'm a big scaredy-cat, don't you?"  
Ino giggled. "Yes." She flipped her blonde ponytail behind her shoulders with a quick toss of her head. "Hey, don't eat the macaroni. Really, Sakura. It's gross." She reached across the table to keep Sakura from raising her fork.  
"But I'm starving!" Sakura complained.  
The lunchroom grew crowded and noisy. At the next table, a group of fifth-grade boys were tossing a half-full milk carton back and forth. Sakura saw Sasuke Uchiha ball up a bright red fruit rollup and shove the whole sticky thing in his mouth.  
"Yuck!" She made a disgusted face at him. Then she turned back to Ino. "I am not a scaredy-cat, Ino. Just because everyone picks on me and - "  
"Sakura, what about last week? Remember? At my house?" Ino ripped open a bag of tortilla chips and offered some across the table to her friend.  
"You mean the ghost thing?" Sakura replied, frowning. "That was really stupid."  
"But you believed it," Ino said with a mouthful of chips. "You really believed my attic was haunted. You should have seen the look on your face when the ceiling started to creak, and we heard the footsteps up there."  
"That was so mean," Sakura complained, rolling her eyes.  
"Then when you heard footsteps coming down the stairs, your face went all white and you screamed," Ino recalled. "It was only Sasuke and Naruto."  
"You know I'm afraid of ghosts," Sakura said, blushing.  
"And snakes and bugs and loud noises and dark rooms and - and witches!" Ino declared.  
"I don't see why you have to make fun of me," Sakura pouted. She shoved her lunch tray away. "I don't see why everyone always thinks it's so much fun to try to scare me. Even you, my best friend."  
"I'm sorry," Ino said sincerely. She reached across the table and squeezed Sakura's wrist reassuringly. "You're just so easy to scare. It's hard to resist. Here. Want some more chips?" She shoved the bag toward Sakura.  
"Maybe I'll scare you some day," Sakura threatened.  
Her friend laughed. "No way!"  
Sakura continued to pout. She was eleven. But she was tiny. And with her round face and short stub of a nose (which she hated and wished would grow longer), she looked much younger.  
Ino, on the other hand, was tall, dark, and sophisticated-looking. She had straight blonde hair tied behind her head in a ponytail, and enormous, dark eyes. Everyone who saw them together assumed that Ino was twelve or thirteen. But, actually, Sakura was a month older than her friend.  
"Maybe I won't be a witch!" Sakura said thoughtfully, resting her chin on her hands. "Maybe I'll be a disgusting monster with hanging eyeballs and green slime dripping down my face and - "  
A loud crash made Sakura scream.  
It took her a few seconds to realize that it was just a tray hitting the floor. She turned to see Hinata Hyuga, her face bright red, drop to her knees and start scooping his lunch off the floor. The lunchroom rang out with cheers and applause.  
Sakura hunched down in her seat, embarrassed that she had screamed.  
Her breathing had just returned to normal when a strong hand grabbed her shoulder from behind.  
Sakura's shriek echoed through the room.


	2. Chapter 2

She heard laughter. At another table, someone yelled, "Way to go, Naruto!"  
She whipped her head around to see her friend Naruto Uzumaki standing behind her, a mischievous grin on his face. "Gotcha," he said, letting go of her shoulder.  
Naruto pulled out the chair next to Sakura's and lowered himself over its back. His best friend, Sasuke Uchiha, slammed his bookbag onto the table and then sat down next to Ino.  
Naruto and Sasuke looked so much alike, they could of been brothers. Both were tall and thin, one with straight blonde hair, the other with straight black hair, which they usually hid under their headbands. Both had dark blue eyes and goofy grins. Both wore faded Both wore faded jeans and dark-colored, long-sleeved T-shirts.  
And both of them loved to scare Sakura. They loved to startle her, to make her jump and shriek.  
They spent hours dreaming up new ways to frighten her.  
She vowed every time that she would never - never - fall for one of their stupid tricks again.  
But so far, they had own every time.  
Sakura always threatened to pay them back. But in all the time they'd been friends, she hadn't been able to think of anything good enough.  
Sasuke reached for the remaining chips in Ino's bag. She playfully slapped his hand away. "Get your own."  
Naruto held a crinkled hunk of aluminum foil under Sakura's nose. "Want a sandwich? I don't want it.  
Sakura sniffed it suspiciously. "What kind is it? I'm starving!"  
"It's a turkey sandwich. Here," Naruto said, handing it to Sakura. "It's too dry. My mom forgot the mayo. You want it?"  
"Yeah, sure, Thanks!" Sakura exclaimed. She took the sandwich from him and peeled back the aluminum foil. Then she took a big bite of the sandwich.  
As she started to chew, she realized that both Naruto and Sasuke were staring at her with big grins on their faces.  
Something tasted funny. Kind of sticky and sour.  
Sakura stopped chewing.  
Sasuke and Naruto were laughing now. Ino looked confused.  
Sakura uttered a disgusted groan and spit the chewed-up sandwich hunk into a napkin. Then she pulled the the bread apart - and saw a big brown worm resting on top of the turkey.  
"Ohh!" With a moan, she covered her face with her hands.  
The room erupted with laughter. Cruel laughter.  
"I ate a worm. I-I'm going to be sick!" Sakura groaned. She jumped to her feet and stared angrily at Naruto. "How could you!" she demanded. "It isn't funny. It's - It's - "  
"It isn't a real worm," Sasuke said. Naruto was laughing too hard to talk.  
"Huh?" Sakura gazed down at it and felt a wave of nausea rise up from her stomach.  
"It isn't real. It's rubber. Pick it up," Sasuke said, grinning.  
Sakura hesitated.  
Kids all through the vast room were whispering and pointing at her. And laughing.  
"Go ahead. It isn't real. Pick it up," Sasuke said, grinning.  
Sakura reached down with two fingers and reluctantly picked the brown worm from the sandwich. It felt warm and sticky.  
"Gotcha again!" Sasuke said with a laugh.  
It was real! A real worm!  
With a horrified cry, Sakura tossed the worm at Sasuke, who was laughing wildly. Then she leapt away from the table, knocking the chair over. As the chair clattered noisily against the hard floor, Sakura covered her mouth and ran gagging from the lunchroom.  
I can still taste it! she thought.  
I can still taste the worm in my mouth!  
I'll pay them back for this, Sakura thought bitterly as she ran.  
I'll pay them back. I really will.  
As she pushed through the double doors and hurtled toward the girls' room, the cruel laughter followed her across the hall.


	3. Chapter 3

After school, Sakura hurried through the halls without talking to anyone. She heard kids laughing and whispering. She knew they were laughing at her.  
Word had spread all over school that Sakura Haruno had eaten a worm at lunch.  
Sakura, the scaredy-cat. Sakura, who was frightened of her own shadow. Sakura, who was so easy to trick.  
Sasuke and Naruto had sneaked a real worm, a fat brown worm, into a sandwich. And Sakura had taken a big bite.  
What a jerk!  
Sakura ran all the way home, three long blocks. Her anger grew with every step.  
How could they do that to me? They're supposed to be my friends!  
Why do they think it's so funny to scare me?  
She burst into the house, breathing hard. "Anybody home?" she called, stopping in the hallway and leaning against the banister to catch her breath.  
Her mother hurried out from the kitchen. "Sakura! Hi! What's wrong?"  
"I ran all the way," Sakura told her, pulling off her blue windbreaker.  
"Why?" Mrs. Haruno asked.  
"Just felt like it," Sakura replied moodily.  
Her mother took Sakura's windbreaker and hung it in the closet for her. Then she brushed a hand affectionately through Sakura's soft pink hair. "Where'd you get the straight hair?" she muttered. Her mother was always saying that.  
We don't look like mother and daughter at all, Sakura realized. Her mother was a tall, chubby woman with thick curls of coppery hair, and lively gray-green eyes. She was extremely energetic, seldom stood still, and talked as rapidly as she moved.  
Today she was wearing a paint-stained gray sweatshirt over black Lycra tights. "Why so grumpy?" Mrs. Haruno asked. "Anything you'd care to talk about?"  
Sakura shook her head. "Not really." She didn't feel like telling her mother that she had become the laughingstock of Konoha's School of the Village hidden in the Leaves.  
"Come her. I have something to show you," Mrs. Haruno said, tugging Sakura toward the living room.  
"I - I'm really not in the mood, Mom," Sakura told her, hanging back. "I just - "  
"Come on!" her mother insisted, and pulled her across the hallway. Sakura always found it impossible to argue with her mother. She was like a hurricane, sweeping everything in her direction.  
"Look!" Mrs. Haruno declared, grinning and gesturing to the mantelpiece.  
Sakura followed her mother's gaze to the mantel - and cried put in surprise. "It's - a head!"  
"Not just any head," Mrs. Haruno said, beaming. "Go on. Take a closer look.  
Sakura took a few steps toward the mantelpiece, her eyes on the head staring back at her. It took her a few moments to recognize the straight, pink hair, the green eyes, the short snip of a nose, the round cheeks. "It's me!" she cried, walking up to it.  
"Yes. Life size!" Mrs. Haruno declared. "I just came from my art class at the museum. I finished it today. What do you think?"  
Sakura picked it up and studied it closely. "It looks just like me, Mom. Really. What's it made of?"  
"Plaster of Paris," her mother replied, taking it from Sakura and holding it up so that Sakura was face to face, eye to eye with herself. "You have to be careful. It's delicate. It's hollow, see?"  
Sakura stared intently at the bed, peering into her eyes. "It - it's kind of creepy," she muttered.  
"You mean because I did such a good job?" her mother demanded.  
"It's just creepy, that's all," Sakura said. She forced herself to look away from the replica of herself, and saw that her mother's smile had faded.  
Mrs. Haruno looked hurt. "Don't you like it?"  
"Yeah. Sure. It's really good, Mom," Sakura answered quickly. "But, I mean, why on earth did you make it?"  
"Because I love you," Mrs. Haruno replied curtly. "Why else? Honestly, Sakura, you have the strangest reactions to things. I worked really hard on this sculpture. I thought - "  
"I'm sorry, Mom. I like it. Really, I do," Sakura insisted. "It was just a surprise, that's all. It's great It looks just like me. I - I had a bad day, that's all."  
Sakura took another long look at the sculpture. Its green eyes - her green eyes - stared back at her. The pink hair shimmered in the afternoon sunlight through the window. It smiled at me! Sakura thought, her mouth dropping open. I saw it! I just saw it smile!  
No. It had to be a trick of the light.  
It was a plaster of Paris head, she reminded herself.  
Don't go scaring yourself over nothing, Sakura. Haven't you made a big enough fool of yourself today?  
"Thanks for showing it to me, Mom," she said awkwardly, pulling her eyes away. She forced a smile. "Two heads are better than one, right?"  
"Right," Mrs. Haruno agreed brightly. "Incidentally, Sakura, your duck costume is all ready. I put it on your bed."  
"Huh? Duck costume?"  
"You saw a duck costume at the mall, remember?" Mrs. Haruno carefully placed the sculpted head on the mantel. "The one with all the feathers and everything. You thought it would be funny to be a duck this Halloween? So I made you a duck costume."  
"Oh. Right," Sakura said, her mind spinning. Do I really want to be a stupid duck this Halloween? she thought. "I'll go up and take a look at it, Mom. Thanks."  
Sakura had forgotten all about the duck costume. I don't want to be cute this Halloween, she thought as she climbed the stairs to her room. I want to be scary.  
She had seen some really scary-looking masks in the window of a new party store that had opened a few blocks from school. One of them, she knew, would be perfect.  
But now she'd have to walk around in feathers and have everyone quack at her and make fun of her.  
It wasn't fair. Why did her mother have to listen to every word she said?  
Just because Sakura had admired a duck costume in a store didn't mean she wanted to be a stupid duck for Halloween!  
Sakura hesitated outside her bedroom. The door had been pulled closed for some reason. She never closed the door.  
She listened carefully. She thought she heard someone breathing on the other side of the door. Someone or something.  
The breathing grew louder.  
Sakura pressed an ear to the door.  
What was in her room?  
There was only one way to find out.  
Sakura pulled open the door - and uttered a startled cry


End file.
